Live Presentation "Ottawa's Shoreline ... Built from Garbage?" this Saturday!

I am honoured to be making a live presentation this Saturday for the Historical Society of Ottawa. The talk can only be heard in-person at the Ottawa Public Library Auditorium on Metcalfe at Laurier. It is this coming Saturday (January 27th) at 1 p.m. (No reservations/tickets required, but I would recommend showing up a little early as space is limited).

The topic will be similar to what I wrote about in my two-part series in the fall for the Kitchissippi Times on the significant filling in of Ottawa's shoreline with garbage in the 1960s, and how many different Ottawa projects occurring at the time all intersected with those decisions. There was also a direct effect on Mechanicsville's future, and today still, decisions are being made that will be affected by those decisions of 60 years ago.

You can read the two articles at Part One and Part Two.

More information on the Historical Society of Ottawa presentation this Saturday can be found at: https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/113/16,17/ottawa-s-shoreline-built-from-garbage

I'm also slated to be appearing on the CBC radio show "In Town and Out" Saturday morning on CBC Radio One (91.5 FM in Ottawa), sometime between 6-9 a.m. (not sure what time yet) to talk about this subject and promote the Saturday afternoon talk.

Hope to see you there! 

The Story of Sam Gordon - Memorable Early Westboro Teacher

(This is the first of what I hope will be a series of articles about life in Westboro in the 1850s)

Today Westboro is home to many large schools, and dozens of excellent teachers helping educate the roughly 2,000 kids that attend these schools. But today I want turn back the clock 170 years to primitive Westboro, when the neighbourhood had just one school, with one room full of kids of all ages (who travelled in from all over the area), and most notably for the sake of this story, one teacher.

I wrote about the early days of schools in Kitchissippi a few years ago (check out that story here) and in the article, I wrote about the first school, which was established in 1851 in what is now Westboro, on land donated by the Thomson family (who built Maplelawn, aka the Keg Manor home). 

The Thomsons donated a 66' x 99' piece of land in 1851, in the heart of what would one day be Westboro, but at the time was simply part of the wilderness of Nepean Township. The name Skead's Mills was still years away, and the early names of Baytown and Birchton would come later too. The land really was in the middle of nowhere. Even All Saints Church was still 14 years away from having its cornerstone laid. 

19th century frame school house. (This is not in Westboro, but
an example of what it may have looked like. This is actually
Jockvale School, also in Nepean Township, circa 1889).
(Source: Nepean Museum)

The school was built on what is now the northwest corner of Richmond and Churchill (where Gezellig's is now located), and would have looked not unlike the school depicted above. Today's Churchill Avenue Public School traces its origins back to this 1851 school.

Very little is known about this original school house, or even the brick one that replaced it in 1866 when the first one was apparently beginning to fall apart. 

So that makes it all the more exciting that I stumbled across a really great story about the school from the 1850s. I mean, any story about Kitchissippi from that era is rare and exciting, but this one brings alive such a cool early days story that I just had to share it. 

It's all thanks to an interview the Citizen did in 1927 with an elderly Ottawa resident, James McIsaac, who had attended school in Westboro in the 1850s, and remembered fondly one of the teachers there from that time, Mr. Sam Gordon.

The story is set during the years 1856 and 1857 while James McIsaac was a young 8-9 year old student at the school.  

Now at the time, most of the teachers in Nepean Township were male. And the school had just one room to accommodate the 20 to 30 students in attendance (the earliest figure I have is 29 students who attended in the 1863 year, which is a few years after this story is set, so the number of students attending in the mid-1850s was likely even smaller). The student population would have been made up of children from west end farms stretching from Woodroffe to Bayswater, from the Ottawa River all the way south to Baseline. This was what was known as Nepean Township "school section 2". It was just farms, and at the time in the mid-1850s, only half of the land, if that, was even occupied.

Sam Gordon had come to Bytown from Ireland in the early 1850s, part of the large number of Irish relocating to Canada at the time, largely due to the potato famine. He was a college graduate, and had been the head of an academy of some kind back home. He was in his fourties, and unmarried. It was on his very first day of school in Westboro that the mysterious Irishman caught the attention of his group of farm kids. 

Sam had been brought in as a replacement teacher and on his first day, upon arriving at school, the students noticed a new fiddle hanging on the wall. 

"When recess came the pupils ran helter-skelter into the yard", recounted the Citizen. "Soon through the open door they heard what Mr. McIsaac describes as the most beautiful violin music. One by one the pupils crept back into the school and sat listening spellbound to the strains that came from the master's fiddle." 

"Well, children", Gordon said at the conclusion of his piece, "you evidently like music. I love it, so we will have plenty of it." 

And they did. From then on, every day at recess, Gordon would play his fiddle for the children. As well, on every Saturday afternoon, Sam had all the children back for what he called the "school house cleaning", where he would play more music. Barn dance music was mixed with music "which made many of the children cry, it was so sad and solemn." Eventually, Sam taught the children drill and fairy dances on these Saturdays, all to the music of his violin. "Ah, those were the days", recalled McIsaac. 

McIsaac noted though that before there was music, there was work. "The boys carried water from the school well, and the girls swept and scrubbed the school floor. The soap and brooms were bought with money brought by the children from home. Now wasn't that nice? It gave the little ones a real sense of ownership in the school."

"The Village School in 1848" painted by Albert Anker

Sam Gordon was also an artist, and drew on the walls and in the children's books. He drew "the most beautiful sketches of landscapes, of cows in the nearby fields, of the children themselves, of the schoolhouse, and of all sorts of pretty things", remembered McIsaac. "This old bachelor seemed to have a beautiful soul and the children all loved him."

Gordon was unique for the era. The Citizen called him "a teacher who ruled by love and the power of music at a period when other teachers ruled by physical force."  There was a ruler and a strap present in the school, said McIsaac, but they were seldom, if ever used.

But the use (or at least the threat) of physical force by teachers at the time was usually necessary. Male students attending school in the country were often the sons of farmers. They were often physically big and very strong, having put in many years of hard labour on the family farm. And they could be as old as 25 attending school in that era. The Citizen compared them to the supervisors of lumbering jobs in the forest:

"The old time school teachers (forties to sixties) were nearly all what in the vernacular might be called cards. Most of them had oddities of manner and action which will make them long remembered. They had also a vigor of action which made them celebrated. In many ways they were in a class with the bush foremen of the fifties and sixties. Both had to hold their jobs by force. Both had to be supreme, no matter how. If the big boys ran the school, the teacher had to resign and teacher jobs were not numerous. The bush foreman had, on his part, to handle men who were rough and ready and who would just as soon fight as eat. Some of them would sooner fight than eat. Some of them were larger physically than the foreman, and if the foreman resorted to questionable methods of holding his job, he had cause for excuse."  

So back to Sam Gordon, his value to the kids was never more apparent than from one time when he fell ill for a period of time, and a temporary teacher was brought in to the Westboro school house. The replacement teacher was a larger man of about 50 years of age. "After this chap had been in the school a couple of days, the pupils all knew just how much they really thought of Sam", said McIsaac.

The new teacher came from somewhere in the country, or perhaps Bytown, McIsaac couldn't remember clearly. But he recalled that he walked in to work each day, carrying with him a bundle which contained his lunch. Each morning upon arrival, he would place the bundle up in the school loft through a trap door. 

The replacement teacher also apparently had a habit of falling asleep mid-class with his head on the desk. 

"Well it was not long before the children discovered how soundly the temporary teacher slept. One day two of the larger boys had the temerity to get on the teacher's desk and by mutual aid succeeded in getting the teacher's bundle down from the loft", recalled McIsaac. "Then they went out to the road and put the bundle on a load of logs which was being taken to Bytown."

"The boys were back in their place before the teacher woke up. When the teacher looked for his bundle at noon that day there were lots of excitement", joked McIsaac.

"It was noticed that then next day the teacher took only 40 winks, so to speak, and the day after that Sam Gordon came back and all was well."

McIsaac shared another remembrance of another temporary teacher who filled in at one time, a younger man, who was studying for the ministry, and who lived along the Rideau River. McIsaac recalled he had a "marked dislike" of dust inside the school. As Richmond Road was a dry dirt road at the time, particularly in the heat of the spring or early summer, and as the school faced Richmond Road, dust that was kicked up by the road would constantly find its way inside the school.  

"He was a kind teacher, but his habit of always flecking dust off his clothes and polishing his desk sort of got on the nerves of the children."

What a neat glimpse into the long lost days of very early Westboro! 

As records are so sparse from the era, I could not confirm who Sam Gordon was, or definitively confirm where he went after his time in Westboro. It appears likely that he is the same Sam Gordon who a few years later was teaching in Goulbourne Township, in school section 2 there. The 1863 Superintendent's report to Carleton County Council noted that Samuel Gordon was their teacher, with 48 pupils, in a log school house. 

Old records of Goulbourne Township in the 1860s also list a Samuel Gordon living and farming in Munster Hamlet, but with a sizable family. As our Westboro Sam Gordon was a bachelor without children, it seems unlikely the Munster Sam Gordon is the same one. And with the commonality of the name, I can't connect him definitively to any records. So the trail simply goes cold.

However, it's clear the influence Sam Gordon had on that group of early west end children, particularly when you consider how 70 years after the fact, James McIsaac was able to recount with such incredible detail the man who had left such an impression on him as a youth. 

So, it appears this story remains just that - a tidbit of school life in Westboro so long ago. And it is thanks to the interview with elderly McIsaac in 1927 that this story is preserved and can now bring Sam Gordon to life again, 170 years later.

"The Violinist" - Alson Skinner Clark

A 1940s Christmas at Byron House

For the December issue of the Kitchissippi Times, I've written about a local history story that has unfortunately become lost to time. 

One of the most impressive homes on Island Park Drive played an important role during WWII! Read all about "Byron House" at https://kitchissippi.com/2023/11/30/early-days-a-1940s-christmas-at-byron-house/

Byron House/Kirkpatrick House in 1940

Bonus content! Incredibly, a telephone call from July 1941 made by two of the children at Byron House on Island Park Drive back home ot the UK was recorded and preserved by the BBC. You can hear a snippet of this call from Polly and Geoffrey Carton at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/history-ks2-world-war-2-clips-children-evacuated-abroad/zby4bdm

I've also amazingly tracked down video footage of the children at Byron House in an archive in the UK. I'm working with an archivist there to hopefully acquire this film footage (I have no idea how long it is, or what it shows), but I think it would be amazing to see some video of the house and the children enjoying it 80 years ago. Fingers crossed I'm able to get ahold of it soon.

The Byron House children out front of 539 Island Park Drive

The Byron House children work on a miniature model
of Island Park Drive as part of a school project in 1940

Kitchissippi's Heritage over the last 20 years & the urgency of what's coming next

My November article for the Kitchissippi Times is an important one. I usually cover a single topic or event for the Times, but this month, as it was the 20th Anniversary issue for the Times, I chose to write about how heritage has evolved in our neighbourhoods over the last twenty years. But more importantly, how heritage is severely threatened by Ontario Bill 23, which in a year's time will effectively render almost all of our most heritage-worthy (but not-yet-designated) buildings exempt from designation. 

This is an issue which is getting hardly any attention in mainstream media. Maybe because there's still another year to go until it becomes a real problem. But that year will go quickly, and by then, or even six months from now, it will be too late. 

Please read the article to learn more about what we stand to lose not only in Kitchissippi, but across Ottawa and the province as a whole. 

https://kitchissippi.com/2023/11/04/protecting-the-past-how-kitchissippis-heritage-has-changed-over-20-years/

The only solutions are to cross fingers and close our eyes and hope the provincial government changes its mind about the heritage registers (not likely, maybe not even possible now); to ignore it and just let it happen and see so many heritage designation-worthy buildings be torn down and there will be nothing we can do about it; or we can act now and pursue designation of those buildings we deem most important to maintain. 

As part of the article, the Times filmed me giving a little 15 minute guided tour of Kitchissippi's most heritage-worthy buildings, with a few quick facts and details about a few of them. You'll find the video at the bottom of the article, or you can view it directly on Youtube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhYUjRwJkRk

I know the City and our councillor Jeff Leiper, as well as each community association in Kitchissippi, are taking steps to review what might be possible, and to prioritize which buildings ought to be reviewed for designation. I wrote up a detailed report myself for Jeff's office, and included a "top 25" list for his consideration, and I'll be speaking with all the community associations next week about it, and offering my help. But it will take a lot of community input to help push this along. It's a mad scramble, and it's a mess, but this is what we're stuck with.

If you'd like to provide your input, the City is asking for it! Check out this link for how you can contribute: https://engage.ottawa.ca/reviewing-heritage-register

More to come!

How garbage helped build the parkway and saved Mechanicsville

This fall, I wrote a two-part column for the Kitchissippi Times on how garbage was used to fill in three bays on the Ottawa River, between Mechanicsville and LeBreton Flats, creating artificial land. That land was primarily used for the creation of the Kichi Zībī Mīkan (Ottawa River Parkway), but much of it still remains unused, awaiting potential future use by the NCC for embassies or who knows what at LeBreton. 

Part one I previously posted here in the Museum (https://kitchissippi.com/2023/09/11/early-days-from-landfill-to-useable-land-how-the-ottawa-river-shoreline-was-built-using-garbage/).

This is part two: https://kitchissippi.com/2023/10/25/early-days-how-garbage-helped-build-the-parkway-and-saved-mechanicsville/

Part two focuses on Lazy Bay, and how this popular water spot was filled in, which may have actually saved Mechanicsville. If it wasn't for filling in the Bay, the Parkway may have had to run much further south, which would have cut significantly into the housing of the neighbourhood. And honestly, that wouldn't have been seen as that bad an option to City Council, who considered the whole of Mechanicsville for major urban renewal at the time. A huge 1960s project would have seen the entirety of the neighbourhood torn down a la LeBreton, and replaced by apartment blocks. Thankfully this was avoided, in part due to the filling of Lazy Bay. 

The building of the National Arts Centre also played a key role in filling in these bays, and you'll want to read about the astonishing fact that less than a year after garbage was dumped indiscriminately in to the bays, expensive contracts were let to remove some of the garbage! (But only in certain areas, certainly not the full length of the Ottawa River). 

I plan on writing a "part 3" over the Christmas break (exclusively here for the Museum) on what all this means today, and what water and soil testing and sampling has shown over the last 20-30 years. The results are interesting, and I put in quite a bit of time in the fall digging in to the results. So more to come on that soon. 

Note, I will also be making a presentation about this whole topic, which will feature many visuals/photos/etc. for the Historical Society of Ottawa on Saturday January 27th. It will be at 1 p.m. but will NOT be broadcast online I don't think. It will be an in-person Speaker Series event at the auditorium of the Ottawa Public Library. I don't believe you need to be a member of the HSO to attend, but I certainly encourage you to consider taking out a membership to help this valuable group, and the work they do to help promote and preserve heritage in Ottawa. 

https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/113/16,17/ottawa-s-shoreline-built-from-garbage

Please enjoy part two and perhaps I'll see you in January!

Lazy Bay-Bayview Bay-Nepean Bay in 1928

The same three bays in 2022

Creating land: How the City's garbage became the new Ottawa River shoreline

lookng east from Bayview, November 1962
(source: City of Ottawa Archives, CA-8684)

While conducting research for my book on Mechanicsville, I began looking at the history of Lazy Bay, and the "Lazy Bay Commons", as a portion of the abutting land is sometimes called. For those of you who don't know the term, Lazy Bay is the little bay that comes in from the River alongside the Parkway, just north of Laroche Park. Lazy Bay Commons is the greenspace south of the Parkway, on which the NCC is proposing the construction of a row of embassies. 

Prior to doing this research, I'd known that when the Parkway was first built, that the City and NCC had built up areas along the shoreline to help ensure a relatively straight line of travel, close to the river, to take advantage of the picturesque views. In order to do this, a large area in the LeBreton Flats, Bayview and Mechanicsville areas (as well as an area closer to McKellar and Woodroffe) were filled in. I also knew that rock was brought in to create the base.  And probably like most people, that's about all I really knew. Yes I'd heard the rumours of old garbage dumps or pits along the route, and probably like most people, assumed it was just old temporary dumps that had existed in LeBreton or the open areas around Bayview. 

However, as I dug deeper in to the research, I discovered that in fact, the story was far more complex. That the story of the Parkway and the created land over which it travels, from Mechanicsville east through LeBreton Flats, has many interconnecting parts to other major NCC and City of Ottawa projects happening at the time. Most notably - the shifting of all city garbage dumps and collection from the west and east ends - to the shoreline of the Ottawa River. Yes, in the early 1960s, the city garbage trucks brought their loads to the shore; ordinary citizens brought their old fridges and televisions and bags of trash; and many of the houses of LeBreton Flats, exprorpriated as part of the "urban renewal" of the neighbourhood, were discarded just a few hundred feet away into Nepean Bay. 

My September column in the Kitchissippi Times introduces this topic, and the history behind the Parkway and how the new land was created. This was not just an Ottawa concept, cities across North America were doing the same thing. And the short-sighted solution to solving problems at the time, are now wreaking havoc 60 years later as plans are made to build on these articifically-created landfill sites, including most notably at Lazy Bay Commons.

Ottawa Citizen - March 8, 1963

This article is part one of a two-part series (part two will run in October), and it really only scratches the surface of the whole story, but I think gives a good overview. Please read the full story at the link below:

https://kitchissippi.com/2023/09/11/early-days-from-landfill-to-useable-land-how-the-ottawa-river-shoreline-was-built-using-garbage/

Note that in the printed/paper version of the newspaper, an error was printed, giving the date of one of the photos as 1968. That is incorrect, it was from 1962. It is fixed in the online edition.

Also, the perils of writing for a print newspaper meant that I had to cut down a lot of content into about 1,600 words, which my editor further edited down to fit. One quote I really liked that got removed I'm going to re-add here, from near the end of the article, discussing the problems in LeBreton Flats as families left their expropriated houses, and they were left boarded up and vacant:

Though the first houses began to be demolished in October 1963, Ottawa’s Fire Chief urged it wasn’t happening fast enough, and pressured the NCC, calling the houses “time bombs ready to go off”. The Journal wrote of the boarded up homes: “They’ve been taken over by drunks who wine-and-dine and sleep at their leisure, children who play in the ghostly rooms and sheds, and scavenger junkmen at work, systematically stripping them of everything saleable.” 

The NCC quickly began pulling down the houses, and placing them in the Bay. Many of the original LeBreton Flats houses still exist today – buried deep below the Parkway.

I hope you enjoy the article. Remember to watch for part two in October! Also I will be giving a public talk on this subject in January for the Historical Society of Ottawa. Stay tuned for more info on that!

Goodbye 226 Carruthers Avenue - A profile

October 2020 - Google Streetview

My recent article on 50-52 Armstrong was quite popular, so I thought I might do another similar write-up on another classic Hintonburg house about to meet its end. 

The house at 226 Carruthers Avenue is a tiny little one-and-a-half storey house set well back from the street. This little place has seen it all in Hintonburg, from the neighbourhood's earliest beginnings. It was actually the first house built on Carruthers south of Scott Street (the Hintonburg half of Carruthers). It dates back so far, in fact, that it had a Cave Street address when it was first built in the 1880s (Carruthers Avenue's original name). It stands today in the middle of a full built-up neighbourhood, with houses all around it, but in 1888 when it was first constructed, it stood against the backdrop of a small forest that came right up to the backyard.

I don't have a photo of the 19th century Hintonburg forest, but this fire insurance plan demonstrates it pretty well, showing the west side of the street on the top, and no Hinchey Avenue or Pinehurst Avenue to be found. Instead, "thickly wooded ground (mostly pine)" make up the area in behind, with pine trees coming right up to the rear of the house.

The 1902 fire insurance plan of Ottawa, showing
Carruthers Avenue. 226 Carruthers was then numbered
#41, and can be seen as one of the only houses on the west
side. The other streets to the west do not exist yet. Even
Ladouceur Street has not been cut through yet (houses in
its path on the east side of Carruthers would later be moved)

The house at 226 Carruthers is a hearty one. It has lasted 135 years, through at least three significant fires, the arrival of electricity, plumbing and sewers. It has stood as part of rural Nepean Township, the independent village of Hintonburg, and in the City of Ottawa. Much larger buildings have sprung up on either side, dwarfing the little house with its 27-foot deep front lawn. But it has persevered through it all.

Go by today, however, and the fences are up. Demolition is imminent any day. The development plans are approved, and this small piece of property will flip things on the neighbours, suddenly dwarfing them as a big, three-storey strucutre. The little old home that hundreds of Hintonburgians have called home over the last century-and-a-third will be taken down in minutes.

226 Carruthers was constructed in 1888 by 39-year old British-born geologist Francis John Stubbington, husband of Mary Ann, and father of five (with two more yet to come). The family had arrived in Canada not long before 1888. They came right to Hintonburg, at first renting a small house on Stirling Avenue, where their fifth child, daughter Dulcibel Maria Stubbington was born in December 1887. 

Stubbington acquired lot 12 on Carruthers from lumberer Robert Hurdman, who had acquired most of Carruthers Avenue a few years prior. They had a handshake agreement on the deal. Stubbington's purchase was never officially registered, as often buyers would work out an arrangement that was akin to a "lease to own" type of agreement, where they would make payments on the land and build a house over time, with the understanding that once the land was paid off, the property would be deeded to them. Renege on the land payments, and it goes back to the original owner, including any structures that had been built thereupon. 

Stubbington would have started construction early in 1888, the small frame house likely not taking too long to build in its first, likely primitive state. 

The Stubbingtons settled into early Hintonburg life, with eldest child Mabel scoring as the top student in her class (senior third class) at Hintonburg Public School in June of 1889. Francis was listed in various sources as a geologist, engineer and machinist during his years in the village.

However, the family did not remain in Hintonburg long, as by early 1891, the family was living in the Sudbury vicinity, where they ultimately would remain, Francis no doubt called in for a mining job he couldn't refuse. Later he would be listed as a 'prospector' at Copper Cliff in records. 

The house went through a series of occupants, with its next real owner-occupant being Frederick Murch, who acquired the property from the estate of Robert Hurdman on December 29th, 1908, for the sale price of $1 (which indicates that likely Murch had been paying Hurdman gradually over years), which is confirmed by the fact that records show he had first moved into the house between 1902-1903. 

Murch was a mill labourer, and had actually first been living on Carruthers in a different house (262 Carruthers) dating back to about 1898. He was English-born, and had a wife Fanny, and two children.

By 1912, Ladouceur Street was cut through, and the appropriately-named Forest Avenue (now Hinchey) in behind was beginning to fill with houses.

1912 Fire Insurance Plan

The fire insurance plan above also shows the large rear shed that was built sometime around 1910, and still stands today (or at least an older shed with the same footprint still stands today).

***

In 1915, the double next door at 228-230 Carruthers (which is also fenced off and appears destined to be demolished sometime soon) was built. Its construction, however, appears to have been a disaster. That June, Spadina Avenue real estate agent Ernest W. Foster acquired the full lot (which included 226 Carruthers and the empty half lot to the south) from Louis A. and Minnie B. Smith, and took out a mortgage for $3,400 towards the construction of the duplex. Less than a month later, Foster signed a sale agreement with Morris Glattenburg, a St. Patrick Street grocer, to buy the full property. It is unclear if it the deal was made in anticipation of the completion of the house, or if Foster sold it mid-construction, but regardless, Glattenburg took over the project.

By October, Barrett Brothers, one of Ottawa's top lumber and contractor supply shops put a lien on the house, for lack of payment on a bill of $178.18 owing. Glattenburg took out an additional mortgage of $820, from Harold K. Pinhey, son of Charles H. Pinhey, and a local investor/capitalist. But by year's end, he gave up, and surrendered the property to Pinhey due to finances. Oddly, records show Pinhey sold the property back to Louis Smith a year later; the same Louis Smith who had owned the property prior to the double being built! 

228-230 remained a rental building for the duration of its life. You could even obtain free accommodations in 1916...if you were a lady:

Ottawa Citizen, August 18, 1916

During WWII, it was renovated to accommodate two units in each half. A quick look at records from 1945 show families of 4 and 3 living at 230, and families of 8 and 3 living at 228. That's 18 people living in the house!

Records show that both buildings, 226 and 228-230 Carruthers have been rental properties for the last 100+ years, and interestingly, whenever the houses were sold, they were sold together, as the entirety of lot 12 on plan 83. The owners over time have been: Abbot Helmer and James H. Gowan (1917-1921), Thomas Heanin (1921-1941), Blanche Joanette (1941-1945), Rogers Joanisse (1945-1959), Jakub and Yvette Ostrowski (1959-1976), and Ainsley T.E. Anderson (1976-at least 1996, when the records I have free access to end). 

The property (again including both buildings) sold in 1941 for $3,300, in 1945 for $4,000, in 1959 for $12,000, and in 1976 for $65,000. 

***

 

Back to 226, Frederick Murch's wife died in 1914, and he moved out. A variety of tenants occupied the house over the next 20-plus years. The house shows up on the 1921 Census as the home of 24-year old Hintonburg-born "riverman" Joseph Lessard, his wife Marie Rose, and two young sons René and Leo. It also notes the house contained just three rooms (that's total rooms, not bedrooms), and that the Lessards were paying $10 per month in rent. Sadly, 3-year old René would pass away later that year from diphtheria. (Annoyingly, it appears the house was vacant or missed on the 1931 Census).

The house had its first fire late in the evening on May 9th, 1925. While Alfred O'Connor was not at home, and his wife and four children were in bed asleep. Mrs. O'Connor was awakened by smoke, and discovered that the kitchen was on fire, and spreading to the rest of the house. She managed to get all four of the kids out of bed and out of the house, and went over to the neighbours. Firemen were called, and the entire interior of the house and all contents destroyed. Alfred came home just before midnight to the scene.

The shell of the house must have been salvaged, as the house was rebuilt eventually (it was listed as being vacant in the summers of 1925, 1926 and 1927), but occupied again by 1928. 

On January 7, 1937, another fire happened in the house, when stovepipes overheated, which set fire to an upstairs partition while the house was occupied by a Mrs. D. McLeod. It was reported that damage to the house in this instance was "slight". 

Around 1937-1938, a new family moved into 226 Carruthers and would remain for well over a decade. At the time, Paul Parent was 28 years old, working as a machinist, with a wife Anita, and three young children.

On Monday February 12th, 1951, 226 Carruthers was the scene of yet another fire, but this was its most horrific and terrifying. Just before 5 p.m. that Monday afternoon, Paul and Anita's 14-year-old daughter Anita (who had the same name as her Mom) was attempting to light the wood stove in the kitchen of the house, likely to start making dinner for her family. The fire did not immediately start, so Anita grabbed a can of coal oil to help start the fire. Unfortunately, she made a mistake - she grabbed a can of gasoline that was stored in the kitchen, used in summertime for an outboard motor.  She poured the gasoline into the stove, and then lit a match. There was a massive explosion. "Spurting, searing flames enveloped her body as the stove exploded", wrote the Journal. She had been turned into a "human torch". 

The only other occupant of the home at the time was Anita's 15-year-old brother Donat Parent, who came rushing in from another room where he had been on a telephone call with a friend. Donat was "galvanized into action by shrieks of pain and terror", reported the Journal.

"At the kitchen door, he was met by a swatch of blow-torch like flames. Vainly he tried again and again to penetrate the room. It was no use", said the Journal. Donat ran outside and ran into next-door neighbour 11-year-old Ronald Lepage, who had no doubt heard the explosion. Donat sent Ronald to the corner of Hinchey and Ladouceur Street (the location of the nearest fire alarm box), to ring the alarm. Firemen from three stations were now on their way.

"Agonizing screams from his trapped sister made the youth determined that he would get into the kitchen", continued the Journal. "Then there was silence".

"Realizing that every second was precious if he was to save the girl, the youth raced around to the front of the home, and after smashing a kitchen window, pulled himself into the burning room. His sister was lying on the floor unconscious, her clothes afire", reported the Citizen. "Without thought of his own safety, Donat lowered himself into the burning room, and after smothering the flames consuming his sister's clothing, carried her out of the window and to the safety of a neighbour's home". 

Ottawa Citizen, February 13, 1951

Anita was taken next door to 224 Carruthers, the Lepage family home.  Upon arrival of the first firemen, she was transported immediately in an emergency car, and was in a fight for her life. She arrived at hospital with first, second and third degree burns on her face, arms, upper portion of her body and legs. Donat also had minor burns to his hands, arms and face, but was treated at the scene.

The teens' Mom was alerted at work a while later when police came to tell her about the fire, and the condition of her youngest daughter. 

The story was front page news the next morning, with a large photo of heroic Donat appearing at the top of that front page. The Citizen reported that Anita remained in very critical condition, and that her family was understandably very concerned. "I'm not worried for myself", Donat told the Citizen, "It's my sister's condition that worries me right now. I only hope everything will be all right." 

February 13, 1951
Front page of the Ottawa Citizen

Though I could find no other follow-ups in the media about the fire or Anita's condition, a bit of research shows that she did survive and eventually recovered. Donat Parent was a hero for his actions, as was Ronald Lepage, whose quick action in ringing the fire alarm saved 226 Carruthers. The interior suffered significant fire damage, but was repaired soon after, and the family moved back in, though it appears they did not remain long. 

Gerard and Madeleine (Richer) Rolland became longer-term tenants through the 1950s and 1960s, with three young daughters. There could have been longer-term rentals since the 1960s, but I didn't dig into this era of the house's history for this article.

Unfortunately I could not locate a vintage street-level photograph of 226 Carruthers (if anyone out there has one, I'd love to add it to this story!). I do have a couple of old low-elevation aerial photos that shows the house a little. In the top one from December 1965, the house is hidden behind the larger building at the corner (Carruthers is along the top, Hinchey at bottom), but the large shed can be seen.

December 1965 ,with large shed at rear
(Source: City of Ottawa Archives, CA-09085)

In this second photo, the house is again hidden, a victim of its major setback from the street. It's a nice shot of the store and building at 224, and the double at 228-230 at least.

April 1966
(Source: City of Ottawa Archives CA-09136)

Here are two shots taken a few weeks ago, showing both 226 Carruthers, and 228-230 fenced off, usually a sign that the bulldozers are on their way. To note though, from everything I've read, 228-230 was not intended to be demolished (yet at least), and is not a part of the redevelopment of the 226 part of the lot. So perhaps it will remain standing a bit longer. 

228-230 Carruthers Avenue - May 2023
(Photo by Dave Allston)

226 Carruthers Avenue - May 2023
(Photo by Dave Allston)

The property is now owned by an incorporated business known as 226 Carruthers Holdings Inc. Back in the fall of 2021, an application was made to the City to divide the property into two parcels, creating one parcel for the existing 228-230 part, and a new parcel for what would be built at 226. The application would also create an easement for a shared driveway. 

The new building at 226 Carruthers was to be a three-storey, three-unit dwelling.

Minor variances were sought at the City's Committee of Adjustment in October of 2021, and the application was refused (they wanted to make the new 226 lot a width of 8.4m when 10m is required; they wanted the lot area to be 225.6 m2 when a minimum of 300 m2 is required; and they wanted an interior side yard setback of just 0.2m when a minimum of 1.2m is required). The owners took the decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal, where in July of 2022, the appeal was approved, and the project could go ahead. 

Proposed three-storey, three-unit building
(Source: Fotenn Planning + Design, Twitter)

You can see more of the plans here: https://pub-ottawa.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?documentid=81579

So farewell to 226 Carruthers Avenue, a small but integral piece of Hintonburg's history that will sadly be lost like so many before it.